I was sharing some photos this morning with a friend who is also a colleague, and we remarked how the pictures taken in November of 2019 now seem like decades ago. You know — no masks, no gloves, no social distancing.

We’re living in very unusual and strange times, and “normal” feels like part of a distant past. I know these last six weeks have been extremely unsettling for me and my life. I am guessing the same holds true for you. There is a “but” to all this bad news, however. “But” we’re an amazingly resilient society, and I have no doubt we will rebound from this very odd period.

Learning from Our Past

Think about this for a minute. In 1967, we lost three brave astronauts in Apollo 1 in a fire on the launchpad during training. Just two and a half years later, we watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. NASA could have thrown in the towel, but it didn’t. The 400,000 people who were part of the Apollo program persevered.

Setbacks are part of every journey. It is how we reach the other side of the setback and what we do when we get there that matter most.

How we rebound will tell us a lot about ourselves, our friends, and importantly our customers. Because we all have customers don’t we? Whether you’re an analyst, advisor, speaker and thought-leader like me, or an auto mechanic, roofing contractor, or nail salon operator — we all have customers.

Learning from Our Present

Customers are the lifeblood of our work. In my case, great companies like Thryv are my customers. In your case, your great customers might be from around the block, around the city, around the country, or even from around the world. And the world we’ll be operating in over the coming weeks, months and years will be very different from the world we knew. Our customers will all have new and challenging expectations.

As the supply/demand equation comes into balance, companies like yours and mine that know how to excel at customer experience will be the big winners. By “supply and demand equation will come more into balance,” I am referring to the demand side. Pre-corona, I’d argue that for many services, the demand exceeded the supply. With easy money, a robust economy, and among the lowest unemployment rates in history, demand was red hot.

Fast Forward to Post-lockdown

In the new environment, the consumer market will be more discerning and demanding, and anything but red hot. But consumers will continue to spend money. They will just spend it with providers who have rebuilt their core business practices.

I have developed a framework called ThinkLikeAnApp that helps businesses reorient themselves to better serve an ever-demanding, app-centric consumer market.

You know the consumers I am talking about. The ones who spend their entire waking existence on their mobile devices — searching, texting, shopping, reading, gaming. Those consumers probably include you and me. No matter our age, the mobile device has altered our entire way of engaging with society.

Three months ago this blog would have focused solely on reorienting your business practices to meet the demands of the mobile-obsessed modern consumer. Now, it’s about reorienting your business practices to meet the demands of the modern consumer with a new and important layer of Coronavirus best practices.

ThinkLikeAnApp is about adjusting and reorienting your business around three key pillars — Authenticity, Transparency, and Immediacy.

When businesses apply these three principles in a consistent fashion, they’re able to forge the most important characteristic of any customer relationship — trust. And when customers feel as though they’re dealing with someone who is authentic, transparent, and immediate, they feel acknowledged. When that happens, customer magic arises, and trust is developed for the long term.

Operating Instructions for the New World

As we explore the dimensions of Authenticity, Transparency, and Immediacy, we’ll focus on what it means to identify your core values, what it means to remove friction points, and what it means to bring customers into your processes. By doing so, you will deliver a customer experience that meets and exceeds that of your competitors — large and small, near and far.

Attend my Webinar: Remake Your Customer Experience on May 20 at 1 p.m. CT. You will learn how to apply the pillars of ThinkLikeAnApp, and truly implement Authenticity, Transparency, and Immediacy.

When you combine these principles with the new normal Coronavirus best practices, you’ll be on your way to capturing more opportunities in the coming weeks and months.